The Industry of Souls (15 page)

He paused to let the import of his words sink in. We merely wondered what the catch was. The word
execution
was enough to set our minds mulling over the possibilities.

‘In ten minutes,’ he continued, ‘you will be collected by transport and taken far from here. You are, of course, not to know the actual location. For security reasons. This will become apparent to you when you see the task upon which you are to be engaged. For the glory of the Soviet peoples. I need not tell you that escape is impossible. You will be beyond roads. In the wild country.’

I cast a quick look at the wire behind Hut 14. Over the other side, across the ditch filled with snow camouflaging the tangled barbed wire and metal spikes, the world slid uninterrupted to the horizon. If this was not the wild country, where we were going would surely beggar the imagination.

‘Your guards,’ the duty officer went on, ‘are coming with you merely to ensure security. To obey regulations. And, perhaps, for your own protection.’

Dmitri gave me a quick look. We had heard that one before. I could see in his eyes what he was thinking. The rules had changed. Our lucky stars were no longer lucky, our guardian angels had been dismissed and were lounging about in their mess. Someone, somewhere far away in an anonymous office, had opened our dossiers and made a decision. The red pencil had wavered, the rubber stamp had banged down. We were going to be driven out into the bleak Arctic wastes and shot in the head.

Having made his pronouncement, the duty officer left and the guards stepped back from us to hover together, murmuring.

‘They’re as much in the dark as we are and just as worried,’ Titian observed. ‘Shit scared.’

‘Security reasons,’ Ylli pondered with mock incredulity. ‘What the hell does security matter? Out here in the bloody Arctic? Who the fuck are we likely to tell?’

‘Ylli, shut up,’ Kirill silenced him, ‘and go get the rations. They’re waiting for you in the supply hut. Kostya, give him a hand.’

Ylli and Kostya slid off across the ice. Kirill waited until the two of them were out of earshot then, grinning broadly, announced, ‘We’re going on a little holiday, comrades.’

The transport arrived. It was a large Zil-151 truck, the back covered by a low canvas roof. We all piled into it, Ylli and Kostya tossing up three sacks of provisions. The trio of guards elected to sit in the cab with the driver so we were left to our devices in the rear. The engine roared, belching out a cloud of black smoke which disseminated into the darkness. The gears ground together and we lurched forward. At the camp entrance, there was no head count. The sentries just opened the gates and we trundled through without slowing, turning left – north – at the road junction a kilometre from the camp. In five kilometres, we drove past the entrance to the mine, the moon just touching the horizon to the side of the pit head.

‘Here we go!’ Dmitri remarked as the driver changed down into second to negotiate the single track railway crossing. ‘Into the Grey Beyond.’

‘What’s in the sacks?’ someone asked.

Kostya unknotted the ties and rummaged inside: loaves of hard bread, ten kilos of potatoes well past their best, two dozen cabbages the outer leaves of which were just turning rotten, three kilos of dried fish, most of it disintegrated into crumbs and two kilos of bruised apples.

‘The feeding of the five thousand,’ Avel announced caustically, ‘with dessert.’

Despite the fact that our rations were exactly what we would have received had we remained in the camp, our spirits were raised by the food. It was clear we were going to be gone a while and were not being driven to our deaths: at least, not at the hollow end of a semi-automatic rifle.

I took the outside seat in the transport, by the tail gate. It was the coldest spot on board, for the breeze of the vehicle’s motion curled in round the canvas hood, carrying particles of dusty ice thrown up by the rear wheels, but I wanted it and, as the truck made steady progress across the rolling landscape, I watched the sky.

Once the moon was down, the stars became visible, as clearly as if they had been cut from polished diamonds and scattered upon a backdrop of black silk. It had been a long time since I had seen them. In the camp, there were always lights blotting out the heavens.

The lorry bucking and sliding on the icy road, I studied the sky, identifying Lyra down close to the western horizon, Cygnus the Swan to the north and Draco the Dragon at a slightly higher elevation to the south. Traversing the sky, I passed through Cassiopeia and Andromeda to arrive at the Ram, identifying Botein at one end and Mesarthim at the other, finding the remaining stars – Sharatan, Hamal and the two whose names I did not know, even if they had them – faint but clear in the sharp cold air.

Gazing up, the opening lines of Chaucer’s
The Canterbury Tales
came unbidden to my mind, dredged up from some long-forgotten classroom in a world I no longer remembered and to which I certainly no longer belonged.

‘When that Aprille with his shoures sote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heath

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne.…’

‘What’re you prattling on about?’ Titian asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said, not realising I was speaking aloud. ‘I was reciting a poem.’

‘In English?’ He did not wait for my answer. ‘What was it about?’

‘The month of April, when the spring comes.’

‘It may be spring in April in England, but up here?’ he replied trenchantly then, looking up, went on, ‘You think they have the gulag up there on Mars?’

‘What do you think?’ I retorted.

He pondered the question for a moment then said, ‘Not yet. But when men get there, they will.’

The dawn broke, a gradual process like the healing of a wound. At first, it was indefinable but then one grew suddenly aware that it had happened, like the granting of a wish. A thin wash of light to the east spread gradually upwards and the day, such as it was, established itself.

Half an hour later, we halted in a gully at the bottom of which was a derelict bridge. Beyond it, the road petered out.

‘How far have we gone?’ Dmitri wanted to know.

‘Five hours at not much above twenty-five kays an hour,’ Ylli reckoned, ‘makes it one hundred and ten, maybe twenty kilometres.’

‘All down,’ one of the guards called, coming to the rear of the truck and unlatching the tail-board. ‘Take a leak but don’t leave your peckers out too long.’

For a few minutes, we stamped about trying to get our circulation going, whilst Kirill set about persuading the guards to permit us to light a small solid fuel stove he had unearthed from a tool box in the back of the transport. They agreed and, using a bucket, we melted some snow to pass a mug of hot water round between us. Less than half an hour later, we heard a grumbling sound and a half-track appeared over the brow of the gully, slewing to a halt by the truck. We transferred our rations sacks across to it and, within minutes, were on our way in the second vehicle.

At three that afternoon, our backs aching, our arses numb and our ears ringing from the incessant cacophony of the half-track’s unmuffled engines, we reached our destination.

*   *   *

The tent in which we were billeted was pegged out at the end of a row of six on what, in the brief summer, would have been a muddy strand on the curve of a river about twenty metres wide. The sides had been piled up with turves to give added protection against the winter blast. Now, the mud was as hard as concrete and the river might have been made of marble.

We tumbled in through the flap of the door, all of us in high spirits. We had not been exterminated out on the tundra and our quarters were almost palatial. Politically zealous youths on a Socialist Youth camp weekend outing could not have been more boisterous.

Around the sides of the interior were ten bunks upon which lay straw-filled palliasses and piles of three blankets per bunk. In the centre was a stove, the chimney of which went straight up to a hole in the roof surrounded by a protective sheet of aluminium to stop the canvas scorching. Next to the stove were five oil lanterns, a pile of kindling and a box of anthracite kernels. On shaking them, it was found the lantern reservoirs were full of paraffin. A sturdy pine table had half a dozen chairs placed on it, seat downwards as in a restaurant at closing time and, to our astonishment, there were three deck chairs of the sort one might have found by the beach at a resort on the Black Sea, folded up and stored at the rear. Next to them was a barrel of fresh water, a ladle resting on a thin film of ice on the surface. A shelf bore an assortment of pots, pans, a kettle, aluminium plates and a mess tin full of cutlery.

Within ten minutes, we had stowed our provisions, staked our claims on the bunks, lit the lanterns, got the stove going and were boiling the kettle.

‘Queer place!’ Titian commented as we lay back in the lap of our lean but comfortable luxury. ‘It’s got all the facilities but it seems deserted.’ He ran his finger along the frame of his bunk, collecting dust. ‘The maid’s not been in for a while.’

‘No room service,’ remarked Avel.

‘I don’t like it,’ Ylli grumbled cautiously.

The air in the tent began to warm up and I started to feel drowsy. Kostya was already breathing deeply, on the verge of snoring.

‘True story,’ Dmitri began, leaning back on his bunk with his hands behind his head and his elbows stuck out. ‘Peshkov published a novel called
Mother
in 1906. We all know it. Except maybe you, Shurik. Seeing you’re English…’

‘I know Maxim Gorky,’ I defended myself.

‘The stereo-typical revolutionary novel,’ Titian remarked.

‘Which he wrote whilst living in the USA,’ I chipped in, just to annoy Dmitri, allay my ignorance and prove my point.

Dmitri grimaced peevishly at me and went on, ‘One day, Gorky met Stalin at a dinner in the Kremlin. Stalin says to him, “Alexei Maximovich, you once wrote a novel called
Mother.
” “I did,” agrees Gorky to the self-proclaimed Father of the Nation. “Well,” says Stalin, “why didn’t you write one called
Father
?” Gorky thinks about it for a second then answers, “It didn’t occur to me. One has to have inspiration to write a novel.”’

‘Brave man!’ remarked Avel, without much conviction.

‘Bloody fool!’ Ylli said, voicing Avel’s true feeling on the matter.

Titian sucked his breath in and asked, ‘Just how did Gorky die?’

There was a long silence. No one knew for sure.

‘Not in the gulag,’ Kirill announced at last. ‘What happened to him at the dinner?’

‘Stalin turns to Beria, standing next to him. Beria was head of the NKVD at the time. But he’s still talking to Gorky. “I think, Alexei Maximovich,” Stalin says, “you should give it a go. Have a try.” His tone’s encouraging, like a good father to a clever son. “After all, a try is not a trial.” He breaks up the word
trial. Try-all.
’

‘And did he try all?’ Kostya asked, waking from his semi-doze but not opening his eyes.

The tent flaps parted and a man dressed like an intrepid Arctic explorer entered. His clothing was of the latest design. Not for him a padded groin-length
vatnik
, not even a calf-length
tulup.
His coat was thick and looked at if it was tailored from light blue parachute silk with bright yellow stitching at the seams. The cotton padding was deep and gave him the appearance of a colourful, muscular cartoon strip character. He pulled his
ushanka
off and stood with his arms akimbo.

‘Welcome to – well, welcome to where you are, comrades.’ He moved over to the stove. ‘I see you’ve settled yourselves in. Do you have a team leader?’

Kirill got up from where he was sitting on his bunk and addressed the intrepid explorer.

‘I am M938, team leader of Work Unit 8 at Sosnogorsklag 32 correctional camp.’

‘Let’s not you and me stand on ceremony. What’s your name?’

We looked at each other, more puzzled now rather than suspicious.

‘I am Kirill Karlovich,’ Kirill said.

‘Well, team leader Kirill Karlovich,’ the man said and he sat down on the edge of the table, ‘tell me, are you all…’ He paused, as if deducing the word might insult us, but it was out of suspicion that he paused, not consideration. ‘…
ideinye.
’

‘Yes, comrade,’ Kirill confirmed. ‘Ideological inmates.’

‘No
blatnye
?’

‘No, comrade.’

‘Good!’ He turned to Avel. ‘What were you before you blotted your copybook?’

‘Fighter pilot, comrade,’ Avel said standing up, not quite to attention: it had been a long time since he had last addressed an officer and he assumed this must be one despite his multicoloured garb.

‘Saw action?’

‘Yes, comrade. Korea, comrade.’

‘And you?’ he enquired, turning.

‘Mathematician, comrade,’ Titian said.

‘In the military?’

‘University teacher, comrade.’

‘Which of you is the Englishman?’ he asked. There was more than a touch of curiosity in his voice.

I rose to my feet.

‘Number?’

‘B916, comrade.’

‘And what were you, Mr. B916 Englishman?’

‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ I replied.

I could sense my workmates tense up. There was a touch of the Gorky coming out in me. After a moment of silence, during which he astutely studied me, the man laughed quietly at my response, pulled a chair over and sat at the table, leaning forward on his elbows.

‘I trust you are what I requested?’

‘Comrade?’ Kirill replied.

‘I see. You’ve not been told anything. Am I in the company of experienced miners?’

‘Yes, comrade,’ Kirill confirmed.

‘And am I to understand,’ he went on, ‘that you’ve brought your own rations?’